Such a printer device generally includes a housing for receiving the roll, a travel path for the strip of paper from the housing to a printer member, and a control member associated with a drive member for driving the strip of paper along the travel path. The housing is fitted with support means for supporting the roll from beneath inside the housing and for horizontally centering the roll on a vertical reference axis. Those means commonly comprise two parallel cylinders that are spaced apart from each other and that are mounted to rotate in the bottom of the housing so as to support the roll, while automatically centering it between them so as to encourage regular delivery of the strip of paper into the travel path without jolting. The control member controls the drive member to operate at a speed that is substantially constant and compatible with the speed of the printer member, with the power consumed by the drive member, and with the power consumed by the printer member. In practice, this speed is set to the maximum drive speed that the drive member can achieve when the roll is full, where this speed is always slower than the speed of the printer member during ordinary printing operations. Nevertheless, when printing dense zones that put a heavy demand on the printer member, it can happen that the control member causes the drive member to operate at a slower speed in order to limit the electricity consumption of the drive member for the benefit of the printer member.
It has been envisaged to increase the drive speed during ordinary printing operations by using a more powerful drive member. Unfortunately, such a drive member significantly increases the electricity consumption of the printer device and runs the risk of being under used because of the way electrical power is shared between the drive member and the printer member, with power being fed to the printer member on a priority basis.